Understanding the Differences between DBMS and RDBMS

The full form of DBMS and RDBMS is a Database Management System and Relationship Database Management System respectively. Both of them are used to store data or information in a physical database. DBMS can define, create, manipulate and control the database according to the requirements. Some examples for DBMS are Windows Registry, XML etc. On the other hand, RDBMS is an advanced version of DBMS and it is capable of managing data more efficiently than DBMS. Some example for RDBMS is Oracle, MYSQL, SQL Server etc. Let us compare various characteristics of DBMS vs RDBMS for our better understanding:

Parameters

DBMS

RDBMS

Form of storage

This software stores data as a file

It stores data in table format

Structure of the database

In this system, data is stored either in hierarchical or in navigational form

Here the rows of the table reflect the values of data. The rows of the tables have a primary key which works as an identifier

The number of total users at a time

It can be used by only one user at a time

The RDBMS can be used by multiple users at a time.

Normalization

Normalization is not available in this system.

Normalization is one of the most important features of RDBMS

Data consistency

In DBMS data is not always stored according to the ACID Model (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and durability). Hence inconsistency might occur in the database.

This system strictly follows the ACID Model. Hence there is less scope for data inconsistency in the database.

Data integrity

Integrity constraints are not supported by this system.

Integrity constraints are supported at the schema level by this system.

Distributed database

Distributed database is not supported by this system

Distributed database is not supported by this system

Utilization

DBMS is mostly used for managing a small amount of data

RDBMS is mostly used to manage a large amount of data

The relationship between the tables

As the file system is used to store data in DBMS, there is no relationship between two different tables in this system.

As data is stored in a tabular form in RDBMS, there is a relationship between two data values. This relationship is again stored in a tabular form.

Client-server

The client-server architecture is not supported by this system

The client-server architecture is supported by this system

Data redundancy

Data redundancy is a common issue faced in DBMS

As RDBMS uses keys and indexes, data redundancy does not occur here.

Foreign key and primary key

The concepts of foreign key and primary key do not exist in DBMS.

Foreign key and primary key are two very important features of RDBMS.

Security of data

No data security is available here.

Several layers of data security exist in this system

The speed of data fetching

DBMS is slower than RDBMS in data fetching

RDBMS can fetch data rapidly because of the relationships among the data values

From the above table, we can see that there are lots of advantages in RDBMS compared To DBMS. However, RDBMS is costlier than DBMS. Hence the suitable system is chosen based on the budget and the amount of data.